How serious are the Lehrer and Zakaria plagiarism cases? Listen to this lively discussion between Jason Chu at Turnitin and Jonathan Bailey at Plagiarism Today for observations of both journalists, thoughts on their futures, and ways journalists can best avoid plagiarism.

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Jonah Lehrer’s Publisher is Reviewing All of His Books

First off, the problems just keep coming for Jonah Lehrer. According to Steve Myers at Poynter, Lehrer’s publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is now reviewing all three of Lehrer’s books. The move comes after journalist Michael Moynihan discovered that Lehrer had fabricated Bob Dylan quotes in his book “Imagine”, prompting Harcourt to pull copies of the book and halt ebook sales. Moynihan, however, has gone on to look at another one of Lehrer’s books, “How We Decide” and claims to have found further instances of fabricated quotes and plagiarism. Much of the scrutiny started after Lehrer was accused of self-plagiarism in his work for The New Yorker, reusing old quotes from either his books or articles written for other publications. Though Lehrer survived the initial scandal, he resigned shortly after the Dylan quotes were revealed to be fabricated. However, despite his resignation, the review of Lehrer’s work is continuing and likely will for some time.

In his book, "Imagine," Jonah Lehrer offers up the anecdote of how Dan Wieden--charged with coming up with a Nike campaign ad--coined the phrase "Just Do It" after recalling the last words of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore ("Let's do it").  The recent charges brought up against Lehrer around his fabrication of Dylan comments begs the question of Lehrer, "Why Do It?" 

Once it’s published, it’s permanent. This statement was made back in 2008 in a Columbia Journalism Review piece titled “Scrubbing Away their Sins” and it still holds true today. Jack Shafer referred to the same thing in his recent Reuters article on the NPR decision to remove Ahmad Shafi’s article from their website after duplicate content was discovered via a plagiarism check by one of their readers.